This past Saturday – May 12, the City of Edmonton Emergency Preparedness department hosted the annual Get Ready in the Park event in Hawrelak Park. This event is hosted as part of emergency preparedness week. ARES Edmonton has a presence at this event each year and it is a great opportunity to demonstrate to the general public what Amateur Radio is all about.
This year a couple of our members assisted with setting up, manning the demonstrations, and tearing down. As one of those members it was a great experience as it was almost like a field day. Most of the equipment onsite was set up in the morning and torn down in the evening. The Northern Alberta Radio Club had their communications trailer on site as well which was used as a portable repeater to cover the park, as well as a home base for net control.
An hourly net was held on VHF/UHF via the SARA backbone. Net Control was alternated between Edmonton and Red Deer. Red Deer was also hosting an event at Red Deer College so it was a great way to demonstrate how flexible we can be in the event of an emergency. Nets were also held hourly on 40M and 80M.
Some technologies that were demonstrated were:
- Winlink (http://www.winlink.org)
- DSTAR
- HF
- IRLP
All in all it was a great day had by all – even if the wind turned our tents into a giant sail (knocking over a few tables in the process, but I believe all gear survived).
Below are some pictures of the event.
